In addition to overall No. 1 and Division I No. 1 Buchanan, others that can say they are mythical state champions for 2015 are South Hills of Covina (Division II), Redondo (Division III), Coronado (Division IV) and Sage Hill of Newport Beach (Division V).
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Congratulations to these five baseball teams for being added to the list of all-time state teams of the year according to our traditional Cal-Hi Sports five-division format:
Division I
Buchanan (Clovis)
Look for the Bears to be preseason No. 1 in the state to start next season as well. A solid returning cast of players will include Oregon commit Hunter Reinke at pitcher and Fresno State commits Jamal O’Guinn at shortstop, Quentin Selma at third base and Zach Presno at catcher.
Division II
South Hills (West Covina)
Putting the final touches on a season-ending 14-game winning streak, the Huskies captured the CIF Southern Section Division II championship with a dramatic 4-3 win last Saturday over Redlands East Valley of Redlands.
Leading 2-0, the Huskies allowed three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to trail but they found a way to score two runs in the top of the seventh inning before holding on for their first CIF title since 2009 and sixth in program history.
Robert De La Cruz had a pinch-hit base hit to tie the game before Chris Moya hit the game-winning sac fly.
For the season, junior Johnny Dearth hit .402 with a team-high 25 runs batted in while sophomore Brandon Dieter was 7-2 with a 1.10 ERA for the Palomares League champions.
The Huskies are the fourth team from Covina/West Covina to be No. 1 in the final D2 state rankings following Covina High (1981) and Edgewood (1976, 1977). They themselves were No. 1 in the final D3 state rankings in 1998 at 25-4.
Division III
Redondo (Redondo Beach)
For the second year in a row, the Sea Hawks are CIFSS Division III champions and also have ended No. 1 in the state in their division. They also put together the type of resume at 29-2 (plus two wins by forfeit) to be considered top five overall in the state and No. 1 for Southern California.
Redondo defeated Woodbridge of Irvine 2-1 in its title game after also capturing the Bay League championship.
Senior Sean Reynolds went 11-0 with a 1.08 ERA on the year which included several big postseason pitching performances, such as the one in the section finals when he allowed just five hits while striking out four.
Reynolds also was impressive at the plate all year long as he hit .366 with 34 runs batted in while fellow senior Marco Valenzuela hit .367 with 40 runs batted in. Junior Danny Zimmerman hit .443 with 39 runs batted in and will be a key member of next year’s team that will look to make it three straight section titles.
Division IV
Coronado
The Islanders set a school record for wins in a season with 30 as they captured the CIF San Diego Section Division III championship with a 5-2 win over Del Norte of San Diego. In edging CIFSS Division V champion Woodcrest Christian for this ranking (they’ve been higher for a couple of weeks), Coronado also becomes the first-ever D4 No. 1 team in the state from San Diego.
Josh Leasor got the championship game start and went 5 1/3 innings allowing just one earned run before Zach Weller went the final 1 2/3 innings to get the win.
Finishing first in the Central League, Coronado was challenged during the season with non-league games against bigger schools that would go on to play in the playoffs, which included an impressive win over Eastlake of Chula Vista and a win over eventual CIF San Diego Section Division II champion San Marcos.
Division V
Sage Hill (Newport Beach)
Opening the season with a doubleheader against Windward of Los Angeles, the Lightning won game one before later losing the second game and that would be it as far as losses on the season.
Sage Hill won its final 27 games while becoming the CIFSS Division VI champions.
Four players had at least 20 runs batted in during the season, including junior Brett Super, who was a multi-time state stat star of the week. He drove in a second-best 24 runs while going 13-0 with a 0.51 ERA. Ashwin Chona also was 12-0 on the mound with a 0.65 ERA.
Sage Hill is only the second team ever from Orange County to finish No. 1 in the final D5 state rankings. The first was Newport Christian of Newport Beach, which went 24-5 in 1984.
Stockton office assistant editor Paul Muyskens contributed to this post. Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
